y much on the same lines that Shelley became notorious.
He became more and more imbued with the materialistic philosophy which
was accepted by a certain section of the men there; indeed, he became
their leader and spokesman. He professed an utter contempt for life. He
regarded men and women as so many worthless things spawned upon the
shores of time, to be presently swept away into nothingness. He had
little or no faith in the nobility of human nature. Men were mostly
sordid, selfish, and base. Trace men's motives to their source, and they
were in the main selfish. Women were, if possible, worse than men. When
he was about twenty-four he altered his opinion for a time. He fell in
love with a girl who fascinated him by her wit, her beauty, and what he
believed to be her goodness. For a time his love made him cast off his
father's hopeless philosophy. He formed plans for the future. Through
his mother he possessed an income which, while not large, placed him in
a position of affluence. It was large enough to enable him to enter
Parliament, where he believed he could make for himself a brilliant
future.

He proposed to the girl with whom he had become enamoured, and was
accepted. He had barely become a happy accepted lover, however, when a
young barrister who had won a great deal of praise at the Bar, and had
also entered Parliament, where he was spoken of as a man with a great
future, also proposed to her. Without hesitation this girl, Blanche
Bridgetown by name, cast Leicester aside and accepted the man who had
made a reputation, rather than keep her faith with one whose future was
uncertain. In this decision Blanche Bridgetown was largely influenced by
her mother.

Radford Leicester soon recovered from the wound he had received in his
heart, but he did not recover from the blow which was struck at his
faith. All his old cynicism and hopelessness reasserted themselves.
Whenever he spoke of women he spoke bitterly, his outlook on life became
less cheerful than ever.

Then another element entered his life. Up to this time he had not been a
hard drinker; but now the taste which he had inherited grew stronger.
Drink made him forget his wounded pride; and, confident in his boast
that no distilled spirits could ever affect him outwardly, he indulged
in this evil habit more and more freely.

Still, pride was not dead. Professing, as he did, that life was a
miserable sort of affair at the best, he still had ambition. He want